Through this course you will start to critically examine your own ideas about education, teaching and learning. The critique will be developed through engagement with theories and ideas developed through educational research. You will be encouraged to use these ideas to challenge or support your own ideas about education.
Each week we will focus on one key question, using video lectures, key readings and challenges to explore some commonplace notions about education. With the guidance of the course team, you will be asked to use these ideas to critically reflect on your own understandings and experience. By the end of the course, you will have developed a personal response to the main question: what is your preferred future for education?

NF

Great course! I enjoyed it very much. I feel like it is slightly more directed at teachers and those who have a career in education, rather than individuals interested in the topic.

AM

Apr 26, 2017

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Excellent for anyone who is interested in education or is looking at a career or profession in education or just wants to get a bigger & broader picture about education.

From the lesson

How do we learn?

This week we focus on the important question of "how do we learn?". One of our aims this week is to demonstrate the learning approach of this course as well as to get you to think about how you have learnt in the past, and to question some of your own assumptions about learning.

Taught By

Dr Clare Brooks

Transcript

So, you've taken us through three different approaches to learning. I often hear people talking about progressive or traditional approaches to learning. So can you just talk us through those terms and explain what they mean? >> Okay, this is what I think they mean. In some countries, learning is a process that's very didactic. In other words, the teacher stands at the front and delivers. And sometimes the students can be quite passive and that's quite a, you know, a traditional approach to learning. >> So, do you mean a lecture? >> Yes, sometimes a lecture, yes. But often, in, in classrooms even, teachers will just stand. And they'll deliver a lesson, and students aren't very engaged or involved. And so it's just a kind of telling. A bit like back to [INAUDIBLE] and the banking. So giving knowledge out. >> So, and you called that didactic. Because I'm aware that in some countries the word didactic actually means something that's a little bit different to that. But within the English context, didactic tends to mean that kind of lecturing approach. >> Didactic tends to mean here, stand and deliver. >> Right. Okay. >> And, but we are moving away from that here in the UK. We've moved away from that quite considerably. And, it's about the teacher doing less and the student doing more. And we tend to talk about the teacher now more as a facilitator of learning, rather than just delivering. So that's why we're more interested, for example, in concepts like group work in classrooms. Like working with peers like this, with sharing with one other person. It's why we, we've brought technology into learning now. So, we use a lot of YouTube clips, for example, or videos in the classroom for children to learn from, and sharing, or we, we do things online. So there's much more, many more different ways of learning that we would consider sort of progressive that move away from that traditional didactic learning that we've talked about. And, and we like that in, in this country now. >> So can you explain to me why people think that that approach is a, is a more effective way of learning? >> They think it's more effective because young students, or students, anybody that's working collaboratively or doing independent learning, they think it gives them more, it's empowering them more with their own learning. They will also go and research things more than just telling. If you're passive, you may not be taking it in, you may not be understanding. Whereas back down to that think about doing. Sometimes if you're doing something, you will learn more. If you're watching something, you will learn more. So again, part of it is back down to what suits you as a learner. We all learn in different ways. Now in classrooms here, we are giving lots of different ways for students to learn. So you can find a classroom here with lots going on. Some might be working in a group, some might be working on their own, some might be watching something, some might be working on a computer. That's really far removed from somebody just standing at the front of the room and telling. And so, we've moved away from that so that people become more independent and more empowered for when they're learning. >> So, I'm aware that there's quite a few people who have been quite critical of progressive approaches in education. They've been quite unpopular. Can you explain a little bit as to why that might be? >> I think I can take it from myself. I was quite cynical to begin with about new approaches, for example, this online learning. But actually, I'm well in favor of it now, because I've experience it, and it's absolutely great. I think in the past, particularly in the 70s, progressive education was seen as an uneconomical way of doing things. Because having one person standing front of 100 people is a lot cheaper than you know, small groups, small learning. There's also got to be a shift in thinking even nowadays working with student-teacher as I do quite a lot. They feel if they're not standing and delivering at the front of the room, they're not really doing anything. And getting them to shift that way of thinking to become a facilitator of lots of things going on in the classroom. Sometimes the outside world views that as they're not really doing that much. They're not purposeful. Kind of if they're not sitting at a desk writing what's on the board. If they're actually sitting in a group talking or drawing or putting something on a flip chart and presenting, people think they're maybe not learning. But we've discovered that children really are learning in those different ways. So, I think that's why it's been critical. It's not very economical at times. And it's just a big shift in the way we think about learning. >> I understand a lot of what you're saying there, because when I was a teacher, when I did a lesson, if the student spent a lot of the lesson talking, they often felt at the end of the lesson that they'd had a light lesson, that they hadn't really learned very much. Where as if they spent the entire lesson writing, at the end of it, they felt that they'd achieved more. But would you say that they didn't necessarily learn more in the writing lesson and possibly could've learned more in the discussion? >> I think they probably could learn a bit more in the discussion. Sometimes if you talk to youngsters who've just sat and wrote things down for a period then they may not actually learn anything from it. So it's back to that doing. So yes. And we still nowadays, we still, even with getting them to do things in groups or getting them to do activities or you know, research on the computer, we still say what if they'd gone out of the room having written down. So there's still a little bit of worry about if they actually got something written so they can do revision. But, I do think sometimes children can go out of lessons having learned a lot through discussion, interaction, roleplay, doing than just sitting writing what's on a board. >> So you made reference there to classrooms. And you've talked a little bit about different ways that classrooms can be organized. Would say that there are particular conditions that are necessary for learning? I think there are, but I think it's back to that what I said earlier about we're all unique as people, we're all unique as learners. So it's finding again what's best, what works for you. So some people like to be shut away in a quiet room with their computer and their books. Other people like to be more with other people learning. So it's finding what works for you. I find what works for me is having to block out time. Make sure that you, you know, you dedicate some time to your learning if you're serious about it. Have a quiet place. A table, a computer. That kind of condition for learning. Some people like to listen to music while they're studying and learning, others don't. So, it's finding really what works for you. So, yeah. >> So when I was a student, when I was doing my exams when I was at school, my mother used to tell me off all the time for having music on whilst I was studying, whilst I was revising. Was she wrong to tell me off? >> Am I going to criticize your mother? No I don't think, well I think. There are lots of people that think that but, most people listen to music nowadays when they're doing it. It's quite common to children in schools with iPods on while they're working on the computer. It's quite acceptable. If that works for some people and that works for you, that's fine. Interestingly enough, I'm a musician in my spare time but I don't listen to music while I'm studying. I like silence. And I like to shut myself away, and I like to set aside a few hours just to do it. And I get everything around me. I like to keep things in the one place. Some people might find that's something that works for them rather than spreading across a number of rooms. But no, I don't think your mother was wrong. But I think again it's back to that progressive versus traditional. You, you would never have thought about listening to music studying in a classroom a number of years ago, but it's quite commonplace now with youngsters doing that. So, it's down to what works for you and what makes you feel better.

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